Blackbelt (1992) Concorde/Action RT: 85 minutes Rated R (strong martial arts violence, nudity, sexuality, language) Director: Charles Philip Moore Screenplay: Charles Philip Moore Music: David and Eric Wurst Cinematography: John Ulyanov Release date: May 28, 1992 (US) Cast: Don “The Dragon” Wilson, Deirdre Haj (as “Deirdre Imershein”), Matthias Hues, Richard Beymer, Alan Blumenfeld, Jack Forcinito (as “Jack Verell”), Barbara A. Graham, Bob McFarland, Joe Garcia, Mitch Bobrow*, Victor Mohica, “Bad” Brad Hefton*, Mia Ruiz, Kimberly Lord, Mychelle Dangerfield, Linda Sharpe. Cameos by Ernest Simmons, Tim Baker, Gerry Blanck, Ian Jacklin, Jim Graden and John Graden. Box Office: N/A
Rating: ***
A few weeks ago, I reviewed another Roger Corman cheapie entitled Angel of Destruction, It stars Maria Ford as an undercover cop protecting a rock singer from a psychotic stalker and her mobbed-up financial backer looking to collect on her insurance. I mentioned in the review that it’s a female-driven remake of another Concorde flick. This is it! It’s called Blackbelt and it stars Don “The Dragon” Wilson in the role played two years later by Ford. It’s pretty good.
Wilson plays Jack Dillon, an ex-cop who now works in the private sector doing odd jobs like saving young runaways from violent pimps on behalf of their worried mothers. He also runs a karate school. He’s hired to be the bodyguard of rock singer Shanna (Imershein, Skyscraper) after she’s threatened by a psychotic admirer named John Sweet (Hues, I Come in Peace). This guy is all kinds of f***ed in the head. Like most psychos, he’s got mommy issues. We first meet him bringing an attractive hooker (Ruiz, Witchcraft II: The Temptress) to a hotel. They go to his room to get down to business only for him to excuse himself for a moment so he can go to another room and beat all five occupants to death. He then returns as if nothing happened and gets to work on the unsuspecting lady of the night.
Sweet’s next stop is the club where Shanna is playing a gig. While she performs this really cheesy 80s rock number, he sneaks into her dressing room backstage and leaves a small token of his devotion, a flower box containing the hooker’s severed finger with a ring on it. It freaks her out enough to seek professional protection. That’s where Jack enters the picture.
It’s a chilly first meeting. Shanna doesn’t like cops, not even ex ones. Her father was a cop and he raped her as a teen. Jack initially doesn’t want the job, but he changes his mind after the frosty singer warms up a little. She’s far from the ideal client. She goes from hot to cold in a second. Her manager/boyfriend Bobby (Verell, Demon Wind) is an abusive jerk. Whenever Jack tries to protect her from him, she consistently takes the creep’s side telling Jack to stay out of it. Uh, that’s his job, sweetheart. She even pulls this crap right after they sleep together. If Jack had any sense, he’d keep their relationship strictly professional, but that’s not how it works in silly movies like Blackbelt.
The stalker isn’t the only person Shanna has to fear. Her sleazy mobbed-up financial backer Eddie (Beymer, West Side Story) wants her dead too. She doesn’t intend to renew their contract meaning he stands to lose the $2M he invested in her. It’d just be easier to kill her and Jack along with her. He sets up a hit, but it fails miserably. It seems Eddie underestimated Jack and his martial arts skills. Oh and Jack gets a little help from Sweet who was lurking around outside when the hit squad showed up. Timing sure is everything, isn’t it?
Jack isn’t working alone. He gets back-up from his cop friend, former partner Will Sturges (Blumenfeld, Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives). He helps him track down Sweet by way of his calling card, a queen of spades playing card left with the hooker’s corpse. It’s the card American soldiers used to leave with the bodies of those they killed in Vietnam. It was their way of scaring the s*** out of the Viet Cong. Hey, you better watch out! We’re f***ing crazy! The clue leads Jack to a bar full of mercenaries that he has to beat up in order to obtain information.
If there’s one thing Blackbelt has it’s fight scenes. Writer-director Charles Philip Moore (Angel of Destruction) can’t go more than a few minutes without one. The scene in the bar is great as is the one where Jack fends off hitmen at Shanna’s place. If I’m being honest, Maria Ford did it better in her movie but only because she was topless. The climax features Jack fighting his way through another group of mercenaries at his dojo. It’s awesome. It leads right to his final showdown with Sweet who’s holding Shanna while he performs some weird ritual.
The cast includes eight champion martial artists in addition to Wilson. In keeping with Concorde tradition, their titles are listed under their names in the opening credits. Other than Wilson, I don’t know who any of these guys are. Allow me to point them out for you. Kickboxer “Bad” Brad Hefton plays the fighter hired by Eddie to take Jack out in hand-to-hand combat. Karate champ Mitch Bobrow plays Rene, a guy Jack and Sturges question about Sweet. Jack’s opponents in the bar include kickboxers Ernest Simmons, Gerry Blanck, Ian Jacklin and karate guy Tim Baker who also appeared in Bloodfist II (1990) and Angel of Destruction. Kickboxers Jim and John Graden show up in the dojo fight. I hope this is helpful.
I know I haven’t seen too many Don “The Dragon” Wilson movies, but Blackbelt is my favorite so far. It’s an enjoyable dumb and OTT actioner with lots of fighting and truly priceless dialogue like when Jack deals with a slimy pimp beating on a girl. He doles out his own brand of justice and tops it off with this gem: “The broken nose is for the girl, the vasectomy’s free.” When the mother tries to pay him, he says, “Keep it. I don’t charge to take out the garbage.” Spoken like a true action hero from a 90s movie! BTW, if the first line sounds familiar, it’s because Moore recycled it in Angel of Destruction.
I have no problem with Wilson. He’s as good an actor as any of the martial artists recruited by low-budget filmmakers in search of the next Seagal or Van Damme. He fights better than he recites dialogue, but so what? It’s not like he’s doing Shakespeare. Imershein’s character isn’t very likable, but she’s kind of hot. She gets to perform a couple of songs including a number called “Love Rocket” where she’s accompanied by back-up dancers who makes the ones in the Robert Palmer videos look like they’re on speed. And yes, we see her boobs, but she only shows them once.
The real MVP in Blackbelt is Matthias Hues who you know best from his role as the alien nemesis in the 1990 Dolph Lundgren sci-fi-actioner I Come in Peace (or Dark Angel if you prefer). With that muscular build and long blonde hair, he’s a psychotic version of Fabio. He plays crazy very effectively. Beymer is a long way from West Side Story playing a vicious mobster. He overacts with no shame at all. You gotta love a guy that does that.
When it comes to B-movie fun, you can’t go wrong with a Roger Corman-Cirio H. Santiago production like Blackbelt. This one was actually filmed on location is Los Angeles as opposed to the Philippines. Moore makes great use of the L.A. locations from the seedy to the glitzy. It definitely plays like a grindhouse movie from the 80s. It’s fast-moving, sleazy and doesn’t have two brain cells to rub together. It’s made for Saturday night viewing.
